UK Lags Behind With Digital Skills

UK Lags Behind With Digital Skills

The UK must improve digital skills in its workforce if it is to be competitive

A report by Barclays has found that the United Kingdom is lagging behind other countries when it comes to digital skill sets. The survey revealed that only 16% of workers in the country would feel comfortable building a website, whilst 39% of people in Brazil and 37% of people in India felt the same. Meanwhile, Brits were also found to be less secure with their passwords, with just 13% saying they used password-generating software, far below the 32% of people in China and India who do the same. After surveying 10,000 workers in 10 countries, Barclays found that this pattern continued across many areas including digital training provided at work, where the UK fell behind Estonia, South Korea, China, the US and India. Ashok Vaswani, chief executive of Barclays UK, said that due to high levels of “digital empowerment” Brits could “compete globally across all sectors and industries”, but only if they “significantly develop digital skills and expertise”.